


Time It Was, and What a Time It Was

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, There isn't any plot really, and no porn, harry is a pop star, just homes and professional satisfaction and love, liam is a song writer/producer, louis has a media empire, niall has adventures with his guitar, zayn writes novels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 20:24:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3623082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And that’s it. That’s how One Direction ends, with Louis whooping on his couch, and Harry crying small, happy, sad, quiet tears, and Niall cheerfully bashful with his own bravery, and Liam cradling his phone gently, and Zayn laughing on speaker phone.</p>
<p>I was sad so I wrote 7k of happy endings for all five of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time It Was, and What a Time It Was

**Author's Note:**

> I kept telling myself this story of how everything would work out for the five of them. and then I wrote it down. I don't usually write 1d, but I thought I would share my comfort fic.
> 
> The title is from the Simon and Garfunkel song Old Friends/Book Ends.
> 
> I feel like I should warn that the band breaks up about 10% in.

The first few months without Zayn are hard. Sad. Lonely. They finish the tour, by the end it feels like the four of them are pushing their tour bus up hill themselves, but they finish it. It’s hard, sad, and lonely, but it’s also wonderful in blindingly bright spots, like walking into a clearing in the forest. Harry adores the Pacific Northwest and spends a lot of time pressing his face against window screens, breathing deeply and rambling about how great the air smells while Louis looks on equally charmed and annoyed at Harry telling him for the 17th time about how the air feels in his lungs. Liam accidentally reads out the dirtiest sign of all time because it takes him a second to understand it, and Louis can’t breath from laughing so hard. And then he can’t breath from missing Zayn. 

They know the fans miss Zayn. It seems like everyone who comes to the concert brought a sign about Zayn. And its great. It’s really great how much everyone loves Zayn and wants him to be happy and healthy. They want that too. They were there for the last few weeks when it felt like Zayn had shut a door between himself and the rest of the world, and for the last few days, after he had decided to leave when he opened the door back up. But it also hurts to sing every night to thousands of people and know that they can’t give them what they want. 

The tour ends and they ramble home one by one. Harry stops off for a few weeks in LA on secret Harry business. (Secret Harry-is-friends-with-everyone-in-the-music-industry-and-has-to-help-someone-celebrate-something business.) Niall flies straight to Dublin without stopping off in London. Liam visits with Zayn for a few days, before heading off to see his family. Zayn has been living at home with his parents, spending a lot of time with his family, reading a lot. He plans to move back to his own house at some point, but it’s nice to see his family every day. He feels like he barely knows his sisters and his parents barely know him. He likes the people they’ve become. He tries to tell Louis about how wonderful it is, how wonderful they are, but Louis gets choked up and then Zayn gets a little bit overwhelmed and the whole thing becomes an exercise in pretending to not be crying while trying to comfort the other without acknowledging they were crying. 

Zayn and Perrie don’t exactly breakup, they just stop being engaged. No one asks Zayn about it because Zayn doesn’t let anyone. He wonders if it makes him a horrible person for leaving Perrie to handle it alone. He thinks it probably does, but then he tries to stop thinking about it. He doesn’t look at what she says in interviews. 

Louis is knee deep in his band competition two days after the tour ends. He misses his family, the familiar shifting weight of homesickness rolling between his shoulder blades. Sometimes it’s light. Usually it’s light. Sometimes though, at night before he falls asleep or when he meets little kids, it turns heavy. But he’s busy. He has strategy meetings and editorial meetings and audition tapes to review and he has no time. 

Harry comes back to England and slouches back into Louis life and house the way he always does and that helps. Harry writes music, tweets incomprehensible tweets, texts everyone he has ever met, writes thank you letters, does some promotion, and generally acts like a pop star. Harry was always the best at being a pop star. He genuinely enjoys so much of it that he can get through even the absolutely shit parts without losing anything of himself. 

And then suddenly it’s time to start working on the next album. Louis has been calling it FIVE because it’s easier than calling it the fifth One Direction album, but everyone hopes the name doesn’t stick. The actual truth of the matter is that the name doesn’t stick because because the album falls apart before they make it. They’re supposed to be switching management teams, which means hours of contract negotiations and lawyers and band huddles and pressure from everyone all the time. 

It’s in one of those meetings that Niall blurts out that he’s not willing to do another tour. It was shit without Zayn. Knowing everyone wanted to see One Direction and they could only be the four of them and he can’t do another year of that. He can’t. And then one of the lawyers-publicists-managers-whatever points out the obvious, they can’t be One Direction without touring, and they can’t be One Direction with only three members. Niall just mumbles and looks away and the meetings end for the day.

The four of them hunker down at Louis house after the meeting. They eat Pizza and play FIFA and call Zayn and tell him everything. Louis jumps on his couch and tackles Liam and kisses Harry’s face wetly and tells Niall he never knew he had it in him. And that’s it. That’s how One Direction ends, with Louis whooping on his couch, and Harry crying small, happy, sad, quiet tears, and Niall cheerfully bashful with his own bravery, and Liam holding his phone gently, and Zayn laughing on speaker phone. 

They announce the split a few weeks later. There are three different trending tags on twitter within the hour. They do a truncated farewell tour later that year. London, Dublin, New York, Boston, Chicago, Austin, LA, Tokyo in the space of a little less than a month. It’s easier than those last few shows. It feels honest. Harry cries on stage every night. He would thank everyone in the audience individually if he could. Louis cries sometimes afterwards. Liam gives lengthy speeches about how much he loves the boys and the band and the crew and the fans and the opportunity. Niall does the tour, even after the meeting where he swore he wouldn’t. He plays guitar and sings better than he ever has before. He’s glowing. They all are, really. As they approach the end so many of the things that seemed okay about being part of the Most Famous Boy Band in the World become unbearable. Niall complains about people on twitter sometimes when they’re rude about the band, or Zayn, or the fans. Liam stops telling interviewers exactly what he’s supposed to. Mild Mannered Harry makes international news when he yells at a fan who groped him. Louis is just exhausted all the time. Exhausted and proud. 

They do so many interviews and that’s what Louis always says. Proud. Proud and excited. Not Scared. 

Harry has a solo record deal lined up for as soon as they split. He’s moving to LA full time in a few months. Harry is brimming over with excitement in a way that makes everything much easier on everyone. Niall has a solo contract too, although his is a little bit smaller than Harry’s and it’s keeping him in the UK. Louis got offers, but he turned them down, telling everyone he wants a break from making music. He plans to be more involved in Be In The Band. Simon has offered him a spot as a guest judge on the next season of X Factor, which he’s probably going to accept. Privately, he wants to throw himself into promoting and mentoring and managing other bands. Liam gets hired as a song writer, which delights all five of them to no end. 

Zayn has started going by Zain sometimes, which is weird for everyone, but he seems to be happy with the change. His signature is a mess. He has been writing in the last few months, a novel. He tells Louis he wants to wait a little while longer and then get a degree in English like he had always planned. 

In a late night phone call from the hotel in New York Liam asks Zayn if he regrets it, all shy and earnest like the answer might be yes, but Zayn can’t tell him quick enough that no, not even for a second does he ever regret it. He would do it again, go back and audition for the X Factor again. He would do some of it differently, but he would do it again. 

Six months after the tour Liam marries Sophia. It’s the first time all five of them have been together since Zayn left and its amazing. Zayn is best man and gives a lovely teary speech. Louis gets very drunk and cries on Harry shoulder about how great Liam is and how great Zayn is and how great Harry is and how great Niall is. Harry and Niall sing a sweet little love song Liam wrote for his first dance. Louis cries some more and dances with Harry. There are no paparazzi pictures, and no one leaks the photographer’s pictures, but there is one picture, just for friends and family of the five of them, arms around each other, a little bit teary, in rumpled suits like the early days of One Direction. Louis uses it as the lock screen on his phone. 

Harry is doing so well as a solo pop star. His album is coming out in a few more months and no one can wait. He has been doing the most wonderful interviews. After years of One Direction press where someone was always pinching him or interrupting him, people are surprised to find out how charming and articulate and funny Harry is on his own. There is a slow but steady stream of articles about all the people he is dating. Harry is friends without about one third of Los Angeles and according to the press he’s dating all of them. Even the straight men. Harry hasn’t come out exactly, but he’s carried on cracking jokes about how handsome various male celebrities are and at some point his publicist or the press decided to write about him as if he was bi. It’s amusingly close to how Harry is in his personal life. Louis has known harry for almost seven years, and at no point has Harry come out to him, he just acted like Louis already knew he liked men. 

Liam wrote a bunch of songs with up and coming pop stars, but now he’s taking a break to take some courses on music production. He wants to open up a recording studio, or work as a producer or something. He’s always sending them links to weird electronic music on Sound Cloud that Harry and Zayn love and Louis and Niall are confused by. Marriage is suiting him well. He has been nesting like crazy, constantly tweeting pictures of his house and reading every article ever about interior design and gardening. Louis is quietly expecting Sophia to announce her pregnancy at any moment, but nothing yet.

Zayn is doing classes too, finally. He’s studying English with a focus on creative writing at a tiny college in America. He’s editing his first novel and starting on his second. He’s happy, maybe the happiest Louis has ever seen him. Sometimes people recognize him, but it’s not like it was. He can go to the grocery store alone. He can browse in book store. He has a comic book shop he’s a regular at. He has a grumpy, fat longhaired black cat named Edelweiss. 

Niall has been playing a series of small shows in pubs and small town theaters across Ireland. It isn’t so much a tour as a lucrative way of being a vagabond. He tweets constantly. He tells them all in a text that he feels like he’s gained a nation of friends. He will never be famous like One Direction was famous, but he will also never buy his own drink again so long as he lives. 

Louis loves working on Be in The Band. He loved being a guest judge on The X Factor. All of it has given him a chance to be a public figure on his own terms, which he likes. The world has been falling in love with him. He’s always been funny, but not being under constant scrutiny has mellowed him out a little bit. He does interviews without snapping at anyone. He stops looking into the camera whenever he gets fed up. He makes everyone around him happy. Before he would make everyone laugh, but he wouldn’t bother with idiots. Now suddenly he wants everyone to remember him as a good guy, the way they do with Harry. He has a deal lined up to do a twice weekly web show covering new music and rising bands, which he is giddy with excitement over. There’s something sort of conventional about the course his career is taking. Very ‘washed up British celebrity.’ Sometimes people point that out to him on twitter. But Louis has never felt less washed up. He is famous on his own, loved for himself. That’s something he never thought could happen. 

Louis is still not out. Sometimes he is hit with shocks of anxiety about it. Would they still love him if they knew he was gay? His manager tells him yes every time it comes up. There had been a plan, years ago, back before One Direction broke up, for him to come out. There’s another plan now, for him to come out once his show has either tanked or taken off. It’s complicated because of Harry. Coming out will mean reviving every rumor ever about him and Harry. It would be easier if the story with him and Harry were simpler. If he could say yes but not any more, or yes always, or no never. But the answer is that he and Harry had kissed and fucked and cuddled a lot, but then they stopped, and it was never a relationship, they had never dated, never been in love. Or at least Harry had never been in love. Louis thinks maybe he had been, but it was so long ago, and so weird and complicated by being One Direction, and Louis had been so young that Louis honestly has no idea what he had been feeling when he was 18 and 19. Who knows if the reason his stomach had been filled with butterflies for the early years of the band was because he was living his dream or because of he goofy, curly boy he got to live it with and sometimes kiss. Louis’ publicist and Harry’s had decided that the official answer was no never, which is fine, really, with both of them. More or less true, and no one needs to know about their private lives. 

Sophia announces her pregnancy nine months after the Payne-Smith wedding. Liam giggles his way through telling his friends and family. Liam is glowing, and they all tease him that it’s supposed to be the mother who glows during pregnancy. Zayn promises to fly back to the UK from Chicago as soon as the baby comes to meet it. Louis shouts out Liam’s impending fatherhood in the intro to the next episode of his web show. 

Louis’ web show is, of course, wildly popular. There are talks about putting it on the air sometimes soon that Louis largely tunes out. It’ll either happen or it’ll fall through and either way he’s happy. He has quickly built a reputation for being among the best at interviewing musicians. He knows how to keep the interview interesting and snappy without resorting to weird gimmicks or pure zaniness. Not that he doesn’t get zany, but it isn’t all he does. He’s good at asking interesting questions about the music without asking anything that’s too repetitive, and he is unfailingly respectful of his guests privacy. People have started talking about the Tommo bump, and Louis is secretly overjoyed that interesting bands might get a boost in popularity just from appearing on his little web show. Harry has made him promise to have him on every time he comes to London, if not as a guest then as a co-host. 

Harry is selling records like everyone knew he could. He’s being the musical guest and hosting on SNL in a month or so, and the Justin Timberlake jokes have been never ending. Someone sang one of his songs beautifully as their audition for American Idol and the video went viral. He charmed America to death on a tour of every late night talk show. He’s on the cover of Rolling Stone with the title “The Year of Styles” and an article detailing his fledgling solo career. 

Zayn announces via text message that his novel is going to be published. Louis immediately calls him up and extracts every detail about it from him. It’ll be under a fake name, it’s horror, yes he can read it now, no he can’t mention it on his show, yes he can be papped with it, yes he’s really excited. 

Niall rolls through London on his not-exactly a tour, and Louis invites him onto his show for an extra special episode. They chat for hours about Niall’s music, what they’ve been listening to, Niall’s travels, the girlfriend Niall somehow acquired in the last six months without telling Louis, Niall’s album, Harry’s album, the last season of the X Factor, and the song Liam wrote for Niall. Niall plays it for Louis, and its beautiful and perfect. Niall has let his hair go brown, and he’s gained a little bit of weight. Both look good on him. He looks like serious musician in his twenties. They go out for drinks afterwards with Louis’ production crew and Niall’s lady, Zinnia. She’s whip smart and sarcastic and so funny. Louis loves her, and Niall is obviously smitten. Niall has always been much more low key about dating than Louis. He likes to date girls, but not really have girlfriends, but Zinnia is on tour with him, sharing tiny cramped tour vans with him. Niall is so happy and Louis is so happy for him. Louis is even happier when he gets to tattle on Niall in their group text. He fires off a quick text that Niall had a secret girlfriend basically living with him, and let the other three explode the thread with questions. 

Liam has a beautiful daughter that summer named June Eloise Payne-Smith. 

The five of them gather in Liam’s house for her one month birthday. She’s pink and wrinkly and perfect. She has giant brown eyes and tiny tiny hands. Louis and Harry are completely in love with her. 

It’s the first time they’ve been together since the wedding. Louis sees Liam all the time since they both live in London. He sees Niall and Harry a few times a year, but he hasn’t seen Zayn since the wedding. It’s so wonderful to have the five of them together. It feels like home, and like adventure. Louis’ face hurts most nights from how much they make him laugh. It’s different too. Everyone looks a little bit older, and they have stories about interviews and performances and managers and publicists the others don’t know and weren’t there for. Liam is a dad now. He keeps telling them so out of nowhere, stopping conversations to be overcome by being a dad. 

Zayn brought copies of his book for everyone and hands them out a little bit shyly. His book is even better than Louis was imagining. Because he knows Zayn, he can see Zayn in the novel in tiny ways, but even if he didn’t know Zayn, it would be impossible to pretend it wasn’t great. He and Louis spend a night alone together, just partners in crime, on the floor of Liam’s pantry. Louis tells Zayn about his show, and about how close he is to coming out, and how scared. Zayn tells him about Chicago, and about how hard it is for him to date anyone, about how fucked up One Direction left him. 

Niall sings June Pogues songs when she cries.

Harry starts writing a song for June.

Louis holds her as much as he can and smells the sweet baby smell of her head. The weight of homesickness settles onto his shoulders for just a second. It’s been easier these last few years. He can go home more, he’s made friends outside of the band, he can have friends he sees in person, can sleep in his own bed, but sometimes he has flashes of a mix of homesickness and guilt and nostalgia that he thinks has something to do with missing so many years with his family. 

Liam is a wonderful father. He takes hundreds of pictures of Sophia and June and peppers both of them with kisses. He talks about Sophia now with a tiny current of fear and worship, as if seeing her give birth left him convinced she’s more than human. He loves them both even at three in the morning when June cries. He loves them at three in the afternoon when they fall asleep in the kitchen and no one can go in incase they wake them up. Liam finished his music production course work a few months back and went back to work as a songwriter/producer. He works sometimes in the middle of the day with June cradled in one arm and a pen in the other hand.

Liam has, of course, already written a slew of songs about June. 

Louis sees pictures of Harry all the time. He knows what Harry looks like. But Harry in person is more everything. Taller, gentler, better smelling, more hansom. Louis feels almost star struck by this dork he’s known since he was sixteen and shy and goofy. 

Louis jokes that Harry is going to steal June. He pinches Harry’s sides when he’s on the phone with his manager. 

They take one picture together all five of them and June. That one is only for them. They take another without Zayn. That one goes up on Harry’s twitter. it gets retweeted an absurd number of times and spawns a rumor that they’re getting back together. 

Louis does end up moving his web show to the airwaves. They stick with their schedule of two episodes a week, then move up to three, and then somehow he has a daily half hour tv talk show about music. Harry comes on the show early on and talks about his up coming album and tour. They banter like old times and it’s wonderful. Harry plays two songs live, his current single, which is a lovely aching love song, and the song he wrote about June, which is half love song to June, half meditation on how much Harry wants to have kids. He sounds amazing. Louis thinks he’s only improved as a singer since the split. It’s Louis’ most watched episode.

Afterwards Harry spends a few nights staying with Louis like old times. Years later, and he still doesn’t really have a house in London. It’s nice having him there. They talk a lot about how glad Louis is to not be touring. Harry sleeps in Louis bed one night, just for old times sake. 

Zayn’s second novel comes out. A few weeks later he gets an offer to write an arc of X-Men. He accepts. After his arc finishes, he gets another offer from Marvel, and then another, and then Zayn has a career writing comics. He becomes a part of the sci-fi fantasy cannon. Neil Gaiman is a fan. Joss Whedon tweets about his comics. His blanket refusal to do appearances leads to all kinds of rumors about who he might really be. Someone suggests J K Rowling. 

Louis comes out a little bit after that. He tweets first, then does an interview with a day time talk show, and a then slew of articles come out later. He’s gay, he was always gay, he knew when he was in One Direction, he was never in a relationship with his former band mate Harry Styles. He dodges the question about Harry’s sexual orientation. He lies and says there was never pressure from their management to stay closeted, says he just wasn’t ready. He tells everyone he hopes that he can serve as a role model for gay kids and he encourages everyone to respect the privacy of celebrities. He only feels a little bit queazy afterwards. Everyone he’s ever given his number to texts him to congratulate him. Zayn calls him up and sounds a little bit teary, which makes Louis feel a little like crying. Harry calls him up and sarcastically asks him all the invasive questions he’s getting on twitter, but he’s smiling too hard to commit to the joke and they end up just laughing together. His show sees a jump in popularity and then levels back off with more viewers on average every show than before. He gets a little bit of shit, but he’s good at ignoring anything that isn’t fun to snipe at. There are a handful of articles from trashy newspapers about him and Harry, but it’s so mild compared to what it could be. He becomes a gay icon instantly, and someone gives him an award for being a role model for LGBT youth which is nice. People donate to LGBT charities for his birthday. A round of thoughtful articles come out later about what it means for the industry for Louis to come out.

Harry and Louis read those articles together over Skype and speculate. Louis doesn’t feel especially bitter about being in the closet for so long. He’s not sure he would have wanted to come out much earlier than he did. If One Direction had stayed together it might have been different, he had wanted that back then. But the people who loves him have known since he was 15. And dating while famous is complicated. Back then it was even more complicated and Louis thinks really it wouldn’t have been much better if it had been a boy that his managers picked out for him instead of a girl. Harry points out how much it would have meant to kids like them to know they weren’t alone. He’s out now, isn’t he, Louis reminds him. 

Harry comes out officially a few months later. As gay, which surprises Louis a little bit, he always thought Harry would like one of those more ambiguous labels like Queer. 

Harry gets his own LGBT visibility award the next year. His thoughtful articles talk about the cultural narrative of coming out and celebrity, and what it means for Harry to have such an unconventional celebrity coming out. People want him to date every single gay man in show business, but he stays single. His career doesn’t suffer at all, which probably has something to do with the fact that most people already assumed, and anyway he’s Harry Styles and no one could ever dislike him if they tried.

One Direction plays a single show on The X Factor ten years after they were formed to celebrate their anniversary. They do a cheesy where-are-we-now series of two minute videos. Rehearsing is a nightmare, especially because Zayn decides he wants to do it three days before they’re performing. He doesn’t make a video. They don’t announce that he’ll be there, they just let him rise up from the stage with them. It’s nowhere near as good as their shows where when they were in peak One Direction form, but it feels like magic. They play three songs, one of Harry’s songs, one of Niall’s, and one Liam writes just for the five of them which The X Factor plans to sell for as a charity single after the show. Everyone cries on stage a little bit, except Niall who laughs whenever he isn’t singing.

It’s wonderful, but Louis has no idea how he used to have the energy to do that day after day. 

Harry kisses him backstage after the show. Once, hard, on the mouth. It isn’t -- It doesn’t -- They don’t need to talk about it, it was just a kiss.

Harry flies back to LA that night. 

Zayn sleeps on Louis couch that night. They get drunk on champagne and read the reactions to their concert on twitter together. Zayn tells Louis that they want to make a film of his novel. Louis starts to get excited until he sees how terrified Zayn looks. If they make a film of it someone will find out he wrote it, Zayn tells him, quiet and slurred. Everyone will know and they’ll come after him. Yeah, Louis agrees, but it’d be really cool. 

He tells Zayn that Harry kissed him. Zayn was there, he reminds Louis. Don’t know what it means, Louis tells him. Zayn tells him to ask. Harry’s in LA. He left. They kissed before, what did it mean when they kissed before? It meant they wanted to kiss. Maybe Harry just wanted to kiss him. They’re too old for just kissing. They fall asleep together on Louis couch, uncomfortably slumped. 

Zayn flies back to America. He agrees to let them make a film of his novel because it would be really cool.

Sophia is pregnant again.

Niall gets secretly married to Zinnia in Australia. 

Some of Niall’s music gets used in an American indie mumble-core film which earns Niall a certain amount of celebrity in hipster indie circles. They start playing his music on NPR in America and he plays at serious music festivals to serious crowds with overly groomed facial hair. It isn’t what he expected, but he loves it. 

Harry gets asked to do a song for the movie of Zayn’s book.

Louis has a boy band on his show. They’re new and inexperienced and young and full of enthusiasm. After the cameras turn off, one of them tells Louis how much he means to him, how he can’t come out, asks him for advice. Louis tells him to remember who he is outside of all this, outside of the band and music and tour. Its the best he can do when he wants to tell him that it will hurt and it will feel like golden magic running through his veins and it will change everything in his life forever, it already has. 

He calls Harry afterwards. Harry doesn’t answer his phone as a matter of principle. If it’s an emergency Louis knows to call him again. It isn’t an emergency though, so Louis leaves him a message telling him all of it, about how great it is that he’s inspiring the next generation of gay boy banders. Then he calls Zayn, who always answers for Louis. He makes it through the story again, then breaks into one painful gasping sob. He’s okay, he tells Zayn. He would do it again, he says, he would just do some of it differently if he could. He just hurts for himself, sometimes, his younger self, who thought he would go on adventures with his best friends forever and it would be great, great enough that nothing would hurt, and nothing anyone said would matter. 

Liam and Sophia have a boy. They name him Emmet Julian Payne-Smith. Everyone doesn’t drop everything to come and see him, but they all roll through eventually. Louis visits a lot, he brings food and babysits June, who is almost five. She is the most generous, kindest five year old Louis has ever met, and she thinks he’s wonderful. She’s taking piano lessons and they spend a lot of time playing with the piano in Louis’ apartment. 

Niall stops by with Zinnia. He tells June (and Liam, Sophia, and Louis) stories about his adventures all over the world that seem like they can’t possibly be true, but are somehow still very believable. Sophia asks them when they’re going to settle down and have kids. They cackle together and yell that they want to see the world, the whole world, first. It’s obviously a practiced response, and Louis is so happy they have each other. 

Harry is busy until Emmet is almost six months old, but then he’s there and singing to Emmet and June, and babysitting with Louis, and telling Sophia at length how radiant she is. 

He sleeps on Louis’s couch the first night, and then in Louis’ bed the second, and every night after that. They talk about it. They aren’t dating, because Harry lives on the other side of the planet and it would be too complicated and public, but maybe, when Harry is in London, or when Louis is in LA they can do this. Sleep together. Kiss. Touch. It’s nice. It’s nice and it’s just for them. When he leaves to go back to LA Louis feels much more relaxed about the whole thing.

When Zayn comes to meet Emmet, he also meets a with publicist, someone Liam knows, to talk about how he should handle revealing his identity. He doesn’t want to make a big thing about it. He doesn’t need to use it to sell more books, he just wants to stop hiding it. They add a line to author bio in the next print run that says “George K Belew is a pen name of Zain Malik.” Once Buzz Feed pick the story up Zayn confirms it from Belew’s twitter, refuses all interview requests, and it’s done. He can go to the premiere of his own novel’s film now.

All five of them go to the premiere. Liam brings Sophia and June and Emmet. The pictures of the four of them together on the red carpet are so beautiful. Niall brings Zinnia, who wears flowers in her hair and a sheer green flapper dress which puts her on all the best dressed lists. 

Zayn looks unquestionably pleased by the whole thing. He keeps looking down and smiling, like he doesn’t want everyone to know how proud he is. He makes one statement on the red carpet about the film, telling everyone how proud he is to be part of such a great project. Louis want to go and pinch his side, just for old times sake, but he doesn’t. 

Harry holds Louis’ hand while they watch the film. It’s nice. 

A few months after the film leaves theaters, Zayn publishes an article in the New Yorker detailing the experience of being in One Direction. It’s long and biting. He indicts celebrity culture, racism, the way pop stars are managed, homophobia, fans who don’t respect boundaries, paparazzi, twitter trolls, and himself. Somehow the fans and the rest of the band come away looking glowing. He does a second article a while later, about the sexualization of teen stars. Somehow he ends up writing a memoir about the five years he was in One Direction. He’s not sure he could ever publish it, but he lets them all read it. It’s beautiful and true and as usual, Zayn puts Louis emotions into words better than Louis ever could. 

Louis’ show has evolved over the years. He still covers music, but it’s less unknown, up and coming bands, and more musicians of all types. He convinces Zayn to let him interview him about the content of the articles. They don’t have to air it, Louis tells him. 

They talk for an hour and a half. They talk about how isolated they were, how overworked. They talk about fake relationships. They talk about the blond streak in Zayn’s hair. They talk about coming out. They talk about being in control and being out of control. They talk about the weed video. They talk, for the first time ever, about how scared Zayn was of how much Louis used to drink. They talk about pranks and tour buses and stupid mistakes. 

Louis knows he can probably air none of it. Some of it is almost certainly slander to share publicly, but it feels good to do it, to sit behind his desk and talk with one of his best friends about all the things that he doesn’t talk about. Louis saves the footage in full on a thumb drive just for him. 

Niall moves to London with Zinnia. Everyone is a little bit surprised he isn’t in Ireland, but he tells them he wants to be near his friends and in a center of the music industry. He flies home pretty regularly. He turns down an offer to open for Andrew Bird on his European tour, but he does record backing vocals for Connor Oberst’s next album. He records them in the little recording studio in Liam’s house. He and Liam end up making an album together. They spend hours playing around with songs and sounds and harmonies. They end up with an album that’s weird, weirder than anything either of them has done on their own. Niall sings a lot of the songs Liam wrote that were too weird or person or grim to sell to anyone. It’s full of unplaceable sounds and instruments from around the world. Liam makes it warm and bleak at the same time. It’s playful and artistic and basically brilliant in every way. It’s a nightmare to release because Liam and Niall are signed to different labels, but they manage it eventually. Liam maybe hinted he would leak the album. That might have helped. They release it under a pretentious band name. A few days after it comes out, Danger Mouse tweets about it. They make all the year end lists of best music. 

Zinnia and Niall have their first kid six months after they move to London. They name her Mairead. Louis only gives him a little bit of shit for giving his daughter the most Irish name in existence. Mairead’s birth refocusses Niall’s priorities. He becomes one of those dads who talks at an instant’s notice about how being a parent changes you. Liam nods along with equal sincerity, and Louis is always torn between laughing at how cliche they sound and being devoured by envy. 

Harry finishes his second tour and moves to London a while after that. Everyone who matters knows he’s living with Louis, but that stays out of the press. They spend a lot of time together, Louis and Harry and Liam and Sophia and Emmet and June and Niall and Zinnia and Mairead. It feels like a family. They talked a lot in interviews, back when they were breaking up, about being brothers, and it’s never felt so true (except Harry in Louis’ bed every night. That doesn’t feel like brothers at all.) June wants to be a musician when she grows up, which surprises no one, but she wants to be a classical pianist. She practices constantly and intently, with a deeply serious face that reminds Louis so much of Liam. Visiting the Payne-Smith house usually means being treated to a performance of whatever June was feeling good about, and then hearing the distant echoes of her playing the same six measures of whatever she was working on over and over. 

Louis wants Zayn to move to London. He wants it to be all five of them together. He doesn’t tell Zayn so because Zayn is happy in Chicago and Zayn deserves to be happy, but he wants Zayn home. 

And then Zayn comes home. He buys a house in London without telling anyone. It’s cozy and private and modern and small, but expensive and well designed. He calls Liam from his back patio the day after he moves and quietly admits to being in London. He shows up to the next gathering at Liam’s house looking a little bit shy. Everyone is surprised and overwhelmed and Zayn gets hugged by way more people than he expected. Louis feels like a fist in his chest has unclenched. 

Zayn splits his time between London and Chicago after that. Louis asks him why Chicago, why not New York or LA or somewhere, and Zayn shows him picture after picture of a grey blue river, and weird multi leveled streets and graffiti. He tells Louis about how he never feels like he’s trying to be someone else there, like he’s trying to be cool or famous or mysterious. And then he lets slip that maybe there’s a girl. And maybe they’re keeping it casual but maybe Zayn really likes her. They later get it out of him that she’s a PhD candidate in comparative literature at the University of Chicago and speaks five languages and wrote her masters thesis on the language of graffiti. She uses words like praxis and hegemony and poetics and chapbook.

Zayn doesn’t exactly come back under the public eye, but he does some interviews about his book. Only about his book. People have to agree not to ask him about his past or his personal life before he agrees to be interviewed. He knows some people only read what he writes because of who he was when he was 22, but he also knows that for most of his readers that doesn’t matter at all. And that’s wonderful.

Louis and Harry get married a little bit more then ten years after the band breaks up. Louis’ publicist calls it a nightmare and an honor to manage the press around it. 

The wedding pictures are beautiful. Harry’s hairline has receded over the years and Louis has deep smile lines around his eyes, but they are both radiantly happy. All their boys are there with their families old and new. They squabble cheerfully over the music all night long, which leads to a charming mix of every genre imaginable. They release one picture to the press. It’s of Harry and Louis standing side by side, Harry’s arm around Louis’ shoulders, and Louis’ around Harry’s waist. They’re smiling sweetly at each other. If you ignore the way time has changed their faces, it could be an old One Direction promotional picture. Liam, Zayn and Niall are out of focus behind them, someone notices on the internet. Zayn has gone grey, and he’s smiling brightly at Niall. Niall still looks younger than he is, but he has the calm confidence of fatherhood. In the picture he is curled in around himself and blurred like he was caught in the middle of a moment of deep mirth. Liam has his hand on Zayn’s shoulder’s in the picture. He is still solid and broad as ever, but like Niall something of being a father has changed the way he moves in space. The picture is shared all over the internet. People caption it 'Always in my heart' and with lyrics from 'Home.' The news papers caption it 'Dissolved boy band One Direction gathers for wedding of former members musician Styles and TV host Tomlinson. Also pictured are musician Horan, novelist Malik, and producer Payne.'


End file.
